An Analysis of Japan's Goals in WWII

By 1941 Japan was a nation desperately in need of raw materials, space, and respect. The Japanese home islands never had been blessed with natural resources and so Japan needed to import nearly everything needed to sustain a modern society. The resources they needed could be found nearby and brought from America at a price, but Japan wanted to control her own destiny by acquiring those resources for herself. China held vast quantities of natural resources and Japan had been expanding there since before 1900. However, further expansion there was damaging Japan's diplomatic relations with America and Britain.     In addition to China, the Dutch East Indies and French Indo-China held most of the remaining resources Japan needed, including oil and rubber. The resources from this region were the main goal of the Japanese military during WWII.

           

With a goal in mind, the Japanese began to consider how to acquire these resources successfully. There were two real obstacles in their path to this, America and Britain. The United States held what was believed to be a knife at the neck of Japan by controlling the Philippines. From naval and airbases there, American submarines and bombers like the B-17 could wreak havoc on Japanese merchant shipping traveling between Southeast Asia and the Japanese home islands, rendering their conquest useless. Obviously then, the Philippines would have to be captured to protect these shipping lanes.

Attacking the Philippines would  mean war with America, everyone knew this. America had won the islands in 1898 from Spain and then fought a protracted war against the Filipinos for control so they would not give up the islands to Japan without a fight. The American pacific fleet had nine battleships, three aircraft carriers, and numerous other supporting ships. They had near parity in every respect with the Japanese navy save in aircraft carriers. Dealing with America meant dealing with these ships and the Japanese decided to destroy them in Pearl Harbor, on the other side of the Pacific, before they could intervene and save the Philippines.

However, this decision was made in error. An entire ocean separated the Japanese conquests and Pearl Harbor. An entire ocean teeming with lurking Japanese submarines and aircraft, waiting to ambush and slowly attrite the slow but powerful American fleet. If Japan had simply moved on their targets in Southeast Asia in December as they did and ignored Pearl Harbor, they could have quickly swept the Allies from the western Pacific. It was proved time and time again that the powerful, high flying B-17s could not interdict ships at sea. And the Japanese had the ships and planes available to keep anything flying lower away from those vital merchant ships.

With Southeast Asia in enemy hands and the Philippines surrounded by Japanese conquests, America would be facing a difficult choice. To advance thousands of miles across enemy held territory to meet the enemy at the end of this difficult voyage, or to do nothing and accept Japanese control of vital resources. The American people may have accepted war with Japan if the Philippines was attacked, or even if American ships bound for the Philippines were attacked. In that case, they would have demanded that the fleet sail to beat the Japanese as expected.

           

American military leaders had sold to the public the idea that war with Japan would be easy and quick. The Japanese couldn't see properly, they were equipped with bad copies of American hardware, the list goes on. The Japanese had better equipment in 1941. They had better tactics and better training as well. The Zero was offensive weapon Japan needed and their naval doctrine was geared specifically toward attriting and then annihilating an American fleet bound for the Philippines.

           

If the Americans led by Admiral Kimmel had sailed for the Philippines, they would have been harassed by enemy planes and submarines almost immediately. Losses and damage would have mounted as the Americans sailed in several separate divisions. The aircraft carriers the fleet would later depend on sailed in individual units, scouting ahead and on the flanks of the slow battleships. There, they would be picked as isolated targets by the Kido Butai, the great striking fleet of the Japanese. All six fleet carriers, their advanced planes, and their well trained pilots would have overwhelmed each individual American carrier as it was sighted.

The slow American battleships would have heard each carrier cry out for help before silence filled the airwaves. With their air support gone and no bases for thousands of miles, the great American castles of steel would be subject to constant air attack. Those that sunk would do so in the great depths of the Pacific ocean, from where no recovery is possible. Well trained men would have died by the thousands to enemy planes and submarines. When the terrified survivors finally neared the end of their voyage, they would be greeted by the full might of the Japanese battle-line, led by two giant battleships America knew nothing about.

When Americans across the country learned of this great defeat, they would not have pressed on as they did historically. Pearl Harbor was a great shock, but it was survivable. This disaster would have been far greater and delivered all at once. The entire US fleet; nine battleships, three carriers, their escorts, their supply train, and tens of thousands of American boys, was gone never to be seen again. And for what exactly, to liberate French, British and Dutch colonies? To keep China free? America could not have recovered from the losses of ships and men for years.

At Pearl Harbor, the great battleships were resurrected from the mud, the carriers were safely at sea, and most importantly of all, the trained crews of all those ships were safe in harbor or in their barracks. They could train the new fleet that arose like a phoenix from the ashes of Pearl Harbor. Had they met their end somewhere deep in the Pacific, they would have died there. Japan would have been safe to build a powerful network of perimeter bases to keep America out and would have kept their resources safe. Britain would have been helpless to resist as she was fighting for her life with every ounce of strength against Hitler.

The Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor was the best trained and equipped naval force on the planet at that moment. They executed their plan brilliantly but in the end they were doomed. Their strategic goals were impossible to meet with the methods they had chosen. Had they followed the plans they had spent decades developing and refining, victory or at least a negotiated peace benefiting them would have been the result. Instead, the Empire of Japan would spend the next four years fighting for the right to survive and would in the end be destroyed. Millions were killed or wounded fighting a war that could have been avoided had different decisions been made at the beginning.